Porsche 911 GT3 a street-legal racecar

By John LeBlanc, Postmedia News

Originally published: March 6, 2013

GENEVA – The new 911 GT3 is the club-racing version of Porsche’s 50-year-old sports car. It’s the Porsche that justifies all those the SUVs and luxury sedans the German automaker also sells.

At its heart, the new 911 GT3 gets a new, direct-injected 3.8-litre flat-six engine. With 470 horsepower (40 more than the outgoing GT3) it makes the same 123 hp-per-litre output as the 997 GT3 RS 4.0, only sharing the casting of its crankcase and cylinder head bolts with run-of-the-mill 911 Carreras. Only a seven-speed, dual-clutch automatic transmission will be available. But due to swifter shift times and a “launch control” feature, zero to 100 km/h times drop from 3.5 seconds versus 3.9 — despite the new GT3 weighing 35 kilograms more.

In addition to new aerodynamic bodywork, the rear-engine, rear-wheel-drive 911 GT3 also has a pair of new high-tech tricks underneath its spoilers.

A new electronically controlled rear differential can send up to 100% of the six’s power to each rear wheel. While an also-new rear-wheel steering system “shortens” the new model’s longer wheelbase by moving the angle of the 911 GT’s rear wheels by up to 1.5 degrees, making it more nimble at lower speeds and more stable at higher speeds.